


A History of Handcrafts (Because a Sweater Equals Love)

by Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)



Series: A History of Handcrafts [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Families of Choice, Family, Friendship, Gen, Knitting, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love doesn't have to be difficult: all you need to do is reach out to your friends.  A story in three parts and many knitting projects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A History of Handcrafts (Because a Sweater Equals Love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelayneSeahawk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelayneSeahawk/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Spock's Sweater](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2972) by MelayneSeahawk. 



> This would be where I apologize for taking a drabble in which, judging by MelayneSeahawk's other works, textual friendship was probably meant as slashy subtext, and turning it into a gen story about familial and platonic love, with three canon het relationships in the background. In my defense, the story is still _about_ Kirk and Spock, and in any case, I don't believe that turning platonic relationships sexual makes them any deeper or more meaningful; it just makes them sexual instead of nonsexual. But I know that most of fandom has varying mileage, so again, sorry.
> 
> Thank you to Theodosia21, cherokee1, and 7scimitarroll, who fixed my grammar and told me I wasn't crazy. :-)

**1.**

Private subspace calls were obscenely expensive, but what was the point of being a Federation ambassador's wife if Amanda couldn't abuse her husband's position now and then? Still, in deference to her family's sense of propriety, she didn't check up on Spock more than once a month, and rarely for more than fifteen minutes at a time. She simply wanted to hear and see him in something approximating real time, to make sure he wasn't failing to mention things that he thought unimportant or that he worried might upset her.

Such as, for instance, his obvious discomfort with the temperature in Starfleet Academy's communications complex.

Amanda watched her son stifle another shiver so skillfully nobody else would have noticed it, and frowned. "You should wear a jacket," she said, interrupting his description of Nyota Uhura, the cadet serving (admirably, to hear him tell it) as TA for one of his courses. "Or a sweater. I think you'd look handsome in a good cable knit sweater."

The corners of Spock's mouth and eyes twitched ever so subtly downward.

"With a hood," Amanda added, unable to help herself.

"Mother," Spock said, managing to load a world of longsuffering disappointment into the single word.

Amanda bit her lip in a poor attempt at hiding her smile. "Oh, Spock. You wouldn't have to wear it on duty, but it's only logical to adjust your clothing to suit the weather. Sweaters are more culturally appropriate in San Francisco than desert robes."

"I have a coat," Spock said. "Furthermore, Cadet Uhura recently gave me a scarf." He bent out of the camera field for a moment and surfaced holding a long strip of alternating lime green and purple wool, with what looked like weighted neon orange fabric balls on both ends.

This time Amanda didn't bother to hide her amusement. "Nyota Uhura seems to appreciate you, so her taste can't be entirely bad, but my dear, that scarf is _extremely_ questionable. A sweater would be by far the lesser evil."

"Her roommate knits," Spock said rather stiffly. "Cadet Uhura asked her to make something for me. I believe Cadet Gaila's sense of humor is the only questionable aspect in this situation."

Amanda tactfully refrained from pointing out that Uhura had still given the scarf to Spock, and Spock had chosen to, if not wear it in public, at least carry it around with him. Clearly Spock had some emotional investment in his relationship with his TA, whether that was friendship or something less platonic.

"Perhaps I should take up knitting," she suggested. "If handmade goods meet with your approval..."

"Mother, please," Spock said again. "We are wasting time. I have informed you of my recent activities. What events have been of note in your life since we last talked?"

"Well, I've decided to take up knitting," Amanda said, and then let the teasing slide as she caught her son up on the day-to-day events of ShiKahr, bits of gossip about Sarek's relatives, and her latest translation project. She refrained from talking about Sarek. Spock offered his thoughts on the technical details of translation programs until his console beeped, signaling the end of his assigned window, and Amanda regretfully terminated the call, saying, as always, "You should write to your father. He misses you."

As always, Spock pretended not to hear.

Amanda forgot about the sweater business until several weeks later, when a package arrived from Earth with her name and address in Spock's careful, precise handwriting. Inside was a beginner's instruction book on knitting, flimsies of several sweater patterns, three sets of needles, and an address for a yarn shop in ShiKahr.

 _Perhaps you should make a sweater for Father as well, to wear in situations where his ambassador's robe would be overly formal,_ said the accompanying note.

Amanda laughed aloud and resolved to finish the sweater in time for her next trip to Earth. She chose gray yarn and a boat necked pattern vaguely reminiscent of the Science Academy's traditional applicant's tunic, on the theory that a bit of Vulcan culture blended into a Terran product was appropriate for her son, a child of two worlds.

The sweater turned out to be rather a botch job, lopsided and full of knots and dropped stitches, but Spock wore it to dinner with no sign of discomfort, and it was certainly very warm -- Amanda had made sure of that -- so all in all, she considered the project a success.

She did not, however, make anything for Sarek. Instead, she returned the needles and remaining yarn to Spock. "I know you and your father aren't talking, but you don't need to talk to give him a birthday present," she said. A gift made by Spock's own hands would say more than words ever could, of course, but she left that unspoken. If her son and husband couldn't figure that out for themselves, she would eat her hat. Well. After she knitted a hat... and since she'd just given away her needles, wasn't it useful that she was right?

Apparently being right didn't translate into getting her way, however. Spock frowned minutely, and tucked the knitting gear away with a noncommittal murmur about the difficulty of finding time for nonessential activities. Amanda stifled a sigh.

When Sarek's birthday rolled around with no acknowledgment from Spock, she wasn't surprised. Sad, yes, but not surprised. For all their work at mastering emotions, Vulcans had a tendency to let pride run away with them, and both Spock and Sarek were stubborn men.

Maybe next year.

In the meantime, at least her son would be warm.

\---------------

 **2.**

Gaila, in Jim's admittedly biased opinion, was _awesome_. She was the first girl he'd met who liked sex as much and as often as he did, and who never put any strings on it besides friendship. Well, and she wouldn't bring him to her own room, but since he had a single and she didn't mind quickies in classrooms or library carrels or elevators or janitor's closets... hey. It would be ungentlemanly to complain.

He propped himself up on his elbows, lazy with the aftermath of orgasm, and watched her root through her satchel. "Got any new toys?" he asked.

Gaila laughed and waved a set of... knitting needles, seriously? "I could try acupuncture on you later, if you'd like, but are you sure you trust me not to make your penis go numb?" she said, standing and turning to face him with a huge grin on her face and a rectangular drape of something glittery and screaming red in her other hand.

"Anyway, I know Professor Singh is making you redo the latest replicator code assignment," Gaila continued. "Not that it wasn't hilarious to see him get pelted by flavored condoms no matter what supplies he requested, but you know how people are. So get busy and let me have some quality time with your lamp." She sat down on Jim's chair, which immediately contoured itself to her naked curves, and switched his desk lamp to full-spectrum sunlight.

Leaning back with a little wriggle, she started to knit, adding rows to what Jim now realized was a half-finished scarf with a beaded fringe on one end.

"I didn't know you knit," he said.

Gaila shrugged, which did fascinating things with motion and shadows on her breasts and belly. "I don't need more demerits for inappropriate conduct in the computer labs, and I have to kill time somehow while my code compiles. Besides, most Federation peoples are weird about who they'll accept orgasms from, but even Vulcans appreciate getting a scarf or a hat. I like to make my friends happy."

"You've never given me any presents," Jim protested.

"You're not weird about orgasms," Gaila said, reaching back with one hand to pull the desk lamp more directly over her head. "Mmmm. Delicious light. Which does nothing for you metabolically, so stop lazing around and work on your program."

Jim pouted. "Oh, come on. Don't you know what they say about all work and no play?"

"You could have done it right the first time. That would've been easier than disguising your joke so Professor Singh didn't spot the redirects," Gaila pointed out. "Then we could be having fun with my new strap-on." Her needles clicked and clacked in a maddeningly arrhythmic pattern, her hands deftly maneuvering the thread in even loops and lines.

"...You can't say things like that and expect me to concentrate on computers," Jim said, a little blindsided by the images Gaila's words breathed to life in his mind. "It's completely unfair."

Gaila just grinned. "Think of it as motivation. If you finish your program before I finish my roommate's scarf, I'll blindfold you and make you call me queen of the universe and _beg_ me to let you come."

Jim sat up and swung his legs off his bed, suddenly more interested. "And if you knit faster than I program?"

Gaila tilted her head, considering; her needles kept clicking and clacking as if her hands were running on automatic, knitting not worth her full attention the way sex was. Then her grin turned downright evil. "You knit me a dress. Really low cut, and loose mesh everywhere except where your stupid Federation laws say I have to be covered in public. Ooh, and make it skin-color so people have to look twice to be sure I'm not naked. It'll be _awesome_."

"I don't know how to knit," Jim pointed out.

"You're smart and you have good hands. I'm sure I can motivate you to learn," Gaila said.

She turned out to be right about that.

Gaila was also right that knitted things made good presents, but after Jim made the awesome dress for her, a bobble hat for Bones, a sweater for his mother, a pair of matching scarves for Sam and his new fiancée, and (after a week of agonized indecision and a newfound respect for people who made children's toys) a little model of the still-under-construction _Enterprise_ for Pike, he realized he didn't have anyone else that he could knit for without it feeling weird. He was good at sex and casual friendship, but handing people a gift and saying, "I made this for you?" Too serious somehow.

"You're sane about sex, but you still have weird alien hang-ups," Gaila said with a rather pitying expression when he explained why he was returning the yarn he'd borrowed from her. "Love doesn't have to be difficult. If you like someone, you like them, and you want all your house siblings and cousins to be happy."

Jim gave her a blank look. "I don't have any cousins."

Gaila blew a frustrated stream of air through her pursed lips. "Sorry, translation gap. Your friends and crewmates -- or classmates, until we graduate. And speaking of education, I need a study break. Let's go find a snack and we'll trade oral sex until you're acting less stupid."

The sex was great, but Jim still felt weird about knitting. So he tucked his needles away and got on with playing big man on campus and compressing four years of classes into three.

He knew where he stood with that.

\---------------

 **3.**

The worst thing about battles was the aftermath. Adrenaline kept a body going through the crisis itself, but once she knew she wasn't going to die in the next minute, Nyota crashed hard, which made slogging through the inevitable repairs five times harder than it ought to have been.

She knew everyone else was just as tired as she was, but while Sulu and Chekov were man enough to admit their fatigue and go off duty at their scheduled shift change, Kirk and Spock shared the delusion that the _Enterprise_ would fall apart without their active attention. They didn't even take a break to put on extra layers to compensate for the malfunctioning environmental controls.

Four hours in to what should have been beta shift, Nyota called in reinforcements. "Uhura to Sickbay," she said quietly into her headset while she waited for the people repairing com units over the rest of the ship to call in checking their work. "Get me Dr. McCoy, please."

"You got him," McCoy's irascible voice snapped back. "I woke up from a very badly needed nap for this, so make it good. Why are you still working?"

"Because Kirk refused to take a break, Spock won't leave while Kirk's still here, and someone needed to keep an eye on them," Nyota said, tugging at the unfamiliar cuff of her long-sleeved alternate uniform. "I don't have the authority to make them go off duty. You do."

"Damn right I do," McCoy said. "Jim's an idiot. Called out of bed to deal with Klingon adventurers, wouldn't even eat breakfast like a sane man, and now he's trying to work beta shift too? That's twelve hours straight on less than four hours sleep and I bet he didn't eat lunch or dinner either! Your boyfriend's just as bad," he added after a moment.

"Ensign Rand brought everyone lunch, at least, but you're right. They're idiots," Nyota said. "Would you like a private line or should we make this public for maximum pressure?"

"Public, definitely. In fact, put me on the screen," McCoy said. Nyota did, whereupon he proceeded to roundly chew out and humiliate his best friend and his first officer, completely unfazed at having the entire beta shift bridge crew see him unshaven, rumpled, and wearing a magenta hat with a ridiculous pink bobble. It was magnificent. "And put on a damn sweater before you freeze to death, you jackass!" McCoy finished, stabbing the off button at the base of his screen.

Nyota didn't even bother to play innocent when Kirk glared at her, just held up her hands and grinned. "Doctor's orders, captain. Spock and I will meet you in the canteen in half an hour."

Kirk glared harder. "You're a shameless bully, Lt. Uhura. I don't know how I failed to see this before, but rest assured, it's going on your next performance review." Then he shrugged, dropping authority for boyish self-deprecation. "Looks like I need someone to bully me now and then. Good thing you're up for the job. Lt. Ives, you have the con. Call me if anything blows up, but otherwise I trust you to finish the repairs in good speed."

"We'll keep the ship together for you, sir," Lt. Ives said as she took over Kirk's seat. He clapped a hand on her shoulder in acknowledgment.

Nyota took Spock's hand and laced her fingers between his. "If Kirk needs a sweater, you definitely do," she murmured into his ear as they walked to the turbolift. "Do you still have that scarf Gaila made you? That might also be appropriate. You can't be comfortable in this temperature."

"Proper mental focus--" Spock began.

Nyota squeezed his hand. "I know you can work through it. But just because you can doesn't mean you have to, or even that you should."

"A logical argument," Spock said with a tiny smile lurking in the corners of his eyes and mouth. "I believe a sweater and scarf would not go amiss for you as well."

"If you have to look silly, so do I? Fair enough," Nyota said. She stopped at her cabin door and pulled him into a brief hug. "I promise not to let Kirk laugh at your scarf."

In fact, Kirk hardly seemed to notice Spock's green-and-purple scarf, all his horrified attention locked on the lumpy, knotted, oversized, and uneven sweater that Amanda Grayson had made for her son, and which Spock kept in her memory. "That is possibly the ugliest thing I've seen all year. Seriously," Kirk said as Nyota and Spock carried their trays to his table. "I'm sorry if you have some sentimental or cultural attachment to it, but that sweater is horrific." Kirk adjusted the neckline of his own blue sweater as if in sympathy for the way the neck of Spock's sweater had ridden up one shoulder and was trying to strangle him.

Nyota reached over and tidied her boyfriend.

"My mother made this," Spock said, with an offended tilt to his eyebrow.

Kirk opened his mouth, probably to apologize -- he'd gotten much better about acting like a mature sentient being since the catastrophe with Nero -- but Spock cut him off with a brief shake of his head. "I cannot deny that it lacks aesthetic value," he said. "Nevertheless, it serves its purpose. And as you suggested, it has... other forms of value."

"I get that," Kirk agreed, spearing a bit of potato from his plate. Then he paused, fork halfway to his mouth, and said, "I could probably fix the neckline for you. If you wanted."

"You sew?" Nyota asked, setting her spoon down in surprise.

"No, I knit," Kirk said, flushing slightly. "Gaila taught me. I just haven't had any reason to make anything for a while. Who would I give them to, you know?"

It was always strange to see Kirk drop his façade and remember that he was a decent man under the bravado -- and a lonely one too, for all that he seemed to be casual friends with everyone in the crew.

"I know Chekov, for one, would love to get a present from you," Nyota said. "So would Sulu. Even I wouldn't mind a scarf."

"I also would not mind," Spock agreed. He paused -- uncertain, to Nyota's eyes -- then added, "If you would teach me to knit while fixing the collar of this sweater, I would be grateful. My mother once told me I should make a similar article for my father, but I never found the time to attempt the project."

"I could do that," Kirk said, his habitual grin sliding back onto his face, but without the smugness that sometimes marred the expression. "Assuming Scotty hasn't cannibalized the replicators to fix the temperature controls, we can get some needles and yarn and start--"

"--tomorrow," Nyota said firmly. "Today you're going back to your cabins to write the incident reports I need to send to headquarters, and then you're getting a full eight hours of sleep during gamma shift. Doctor's orders, remember?"

Kirk made a terrible face, but apparently he was tired enough or Dr. McCoy was intimidating enough that he didn't protest too much.

At the end of alpha shift the next day, Kirk disappeared into Spock's cabin with a conspiratorial wink at Nyota, two pairs of needles and three skeins of yarn clutched in his hands. She shook her head and entered her own cabin across the corridor. Her needles and yarn were already waiting and she had an instruction booklet called up on her console.

Kirk was fixing Amanda Grayson's sweater and helping Spock reach out to his father. The least Nyota could do was reach out to Kirk in return.

Two weeks later, she finished a blue hat with the words "#1 Captain" stitched across the front, and tucked it onto Kirk's chair before he reached the bridge.

He picked it up with reverent hands, complete surprise painted across his face. "It's not my birthday," he said. "Who'd make me a present just because?"

Nyota cleared her throat. "I did. Because you're my friend."

Kirk's smile was beautiful. And when Spock leaned over her shoulder to whisper, "Thank you," in her ear, Nyota knew she'd chosen right.

**Author's Note:**

> Three things:
> 
> 1) [Some general thoughts on remixing this story](http://edenfalling.livejournal.com/528256.html).
> 
> 2) [A long journal post](http://edenfalling.livejournal.com/529030.html) on the disconnect between what MelayneSeahawk wrote (shipfic) and what I read (gen friendship), why I think that happened, and why I included canon het in the background of my remix instead of only focusing on the friendship between Kirk and Spock.
> 
> 3) [Several alternate scenes and fragments](http://edenfalling.livejournal.com/529572.html), on the off chance that you're interested in seeing the directions I chose not to take the story. They include an overly melodramatic attempt at Spock's POV; brief cameos by Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov; and argyle socks used as a threat. :-)


End file.
